Exhibition
November 17, 2009–April 18, 2010

Highlights from this extraordinary collection of illustrated manuscripts on the history of science and ideas—exhibited together publicly for the first time—demonstrate the circulation of knowledge around the world and across cultures during the medieval and early modern periods. Medieval Muslim and Christian medicine, Chinese acupuncture, secret experiments in alchemical laboratories, codebooks for keeping secrets secret, and French and Persian visions of the cosmos that blend science with spirituality are among the treasures on display. These manuscripts were produced for caliphs, popes, merchants, and scientists. Copied and illustrated by hand, their contents—their ideas and visions—illustrate the human urge for knowledge and creative invention.

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Edited by Crofton Black
Introduction by Christopher de Hamel

This remarkable collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in Western and Eastern languages reflects the collector's fascination with science and technology. These hand-written volumes reveal the complexity and sophistication of pre-modern knowledge about the physical world in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions. The interdependence of these traditions, and their mutual reliance on the legacy of antiquity, are a particular emphasis of this richly illustrated volume. The collection presented here is a testament to the range of human knowledge—mathematical, medical, astronomical, technological—as it evolved in the medieval and early modern era.

To order, please contact the Getty Bookstore at (310) 440-7059.

Learn More on the University of Washington Press Web site.

The Avant-Garde in the American Vernacular
Edited by Andrew Perchuk and Rani Singh

Filmmaker, musicologist, painter, ethnographer, graphic designer, mystic, and collector of string figures and other patterns, Harry Smith (1923–1991) was among the most original creative forces in postwar American art and culture, yet his life and work remain poorly understood. Today he is remembered primarily for his Anthology of American Folk Music(1952)—an idiosyncratic collection of early recordings that educated and inspired a generation of musicians and roots music fans—and for a body of innovative abstract and nonnarrative films. Constituting a first attempt to locate Smith and his diverse endeavors within the history of avant-garde art production in twentieth–century America, the essays in this volume reach across Smith's artistic oeuvre.

In addition to contributions by Paul Arthur, Robert Cantwell, Thomas Crow, Stephen Fredman, Stephen Hinton, Greil Marcus, Annette Michelson, William Moritz, and P. Adams Sitney, the volume contains numerous illustrations of Smith's works and a selection of his letters and other primary sources.

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